Award of Merit:

Blackmagic Design for Blackmagic Studio Camera

For 35 years, Blackmagic Design has created the world’s highest quality video editing products, digital film cameras, live production switchers and real-time film scanners for the feature film, post-production and television broadcast industries. Their products have been used to produce a multitude of feature films including Rocketman, Deadpool, Jurassic World, and major television shows including Ozark, Game of Thrones and The Big Bang Theory. 

In 2016, with over 150 international design awards to their credit, Blackmagic Design became the first Australian company to be recognised as Red Dot: Design Team of the Year, joining the likes of Apple, Porsche, Bosch and Ferrari with an honour widely acknowledged as the most prestigious design award in the world. More recently, they were honoured with the 2021 Good Design Team of the Year by Good Design Australia. 

Ethos
Blackmagic Design is dedicated to making the highest quality video technology affordable to everyone. Their products combine a user focus and innovative technology with a design-led ethos that resonates with professionals and consumers alike. 

Design is integrated throughout Blackmagic’s entire development cycle, leveraged at every stage of the creation process, collaboratively and fluidly across disciplines to deliver more carefully considered final solutions. Hardware and software are developed in unison, informing each other in a dynamic fashion to create consistent, memorable experiences across a wide range of categories. This process has enabled them to drive product cycles with far greater speed, flexibility and efficiency than many other brands in the space. 

A User-centric Approach
Blackmagic products are made for a highly technical industry, with professional customers that demand high levels of performance, reliability and value. Not only are they well designed, of great quality and durability, they specifically cater to the user’s workflow. To achieve this, much time is spent studying the way users work and the environments they operate in. 

Design DNA
Blackmagic products cover many different segments of the video production industry, designed for a multitude of functions, users and contexts. Rather than attempting to create a singular visual narrative, products are instead united through their inherent qualities, reflecting the brand through physical traits like materials, finishes and internal structures, along with key touch points like latches, buttons and connections. 

The ID Team
The Blackmagic industrial design team is made up of diversely skilled, like-minded people, each with a common empathy for aspects of the process outside of their core strength. Understanding how design decisions affect engineering, manufacturing and even quality control at an early stage is incredibly important in ensuring products are not only delivered at an appropriate price point, but that they exceed the expectations of the end-user with each and every interaction with the product.

About the Project

The Blackmagic Studio Camera is the world’s most advanced, self-contained broadcast camera designed specifically for live concerts, sporting events and television. For $1795 - a tenth of traditional systems – it empowers web broadcasters, small businesses and independent studios with a complete suite of professional video imaging, monitoring and production tools. 

Challenge
A major barrier to multi-camera live production is the incredibly high cost and impractical nature of traditional broadcast equipment. Cumbersome, complex, and inflexible, typical cameras weigh over 20kg and cost up to $50,000, making them unattainable for most independent broadcasters. Increasingly, live programs are produced by people outside of traditional broadcasting mediums. From basements, warehouses, bedrooms and offices countless innovative new ideas are being expressed to a rapidly growing, and evermore discerning audience. 

Solution
For less than the cost of a mid-range DSLR, the Blackmagic Studio Camera integrates professional image quality, cutting edge professional broadcast technology into an ultra-compact, durable, all-in-one design. Combining 4K cinematic image sensor, high-end connections and HDR viewfinder, its approachable and highly portable design empowers creative people to achieve professional outcomes regardless of financial constraints or technical expertise. 

Innovation
Made from just three major parts, the advanced Carbon Fiber Polycarbonate composite body of the Studio Camera is the result of careful rationalisation of mechanical engineering, materials and production processes. The central chassis provides a precise and consistently repeatable datum on which to mount sensitive camera optics, critical components and sub-assemblies. 50% lighter than die-cast metal, it possesses comparable strength, rigidity and finish for half the cost, and has led to drastically reduced part count, simplified assembly and improved manufacturing efficiency. This in turn safeguards the image quality, performance and reliability expected by industry professionals, despite lower BOM costs and increased production volumes. 

Impact
Enhancing the workflows of creative people with accessible, professional video technology remains central to Blackmagic Design’s ethos. This is underpinned by a holistic, multi-disciplinary strategy of diversification and customer engagement driven by products and software that connect seamlessly and intuitively to other categories in the Blackmagic ecosystem. Embedded with DaVinci Resolve post-production and ATEM live broadcast features, the Blackmagic Studio Camera encourages users to be self-reliant, arming themselves with the professional end-to-end tools to realise their creative goals independently.

Category: Use

Designers and Projet Team:
Blackmagic Industrial Design Team, led by Simon Kidd